


A Queen and Her Knight

by Draco_sollicitus



Series: Short but Sometimes Sweet: Damerey Collection [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriages, Ben is King/Emperor, F/M, Fantasy AU, King Ren, Knight AU, Look closely and you'll see some Princess Bride similarities, M/M, Maybe not even that closely, Medieval AU, POV Rey, Poe is a Knight of Ren, Rey is a peasant, Separation, This is .... not fluff, but that could change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:16:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14405829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draco_sollicitus/pseuds/Draco_sollicitus
Summary: When Poe Dameron, best swordsman from his village, is conscripted into service as a Knight of Ren, he leaves behind the girl he has loved for years. Before he departs to help wage war against the First Order, he confesses his love to Rey Kenobi, his close friend who has nothing in the world but her name, the clothes on her back, and the love in her heart for a brash boy from her village.She waits for his return, but her love does not come back.When King Ren arrives at Jakku seeking a suitable bride, he picks Rey from the crowd and takes her to his palace at Coruscant, where Rey is reunited with her lost love in the most painful of ways.Sir Poe Dameron remains in King Ren's service, and he will not stray from his oath, regardless of promises he made to a starry-eyed girl from his village, years ago.





	1. Lady Rey

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: this gets angsty, y'all. 
> 
> Another warning: Rated T, but brief description/walking in on sexual interaction between two characters, M/M.
> 
>  
> 
> PS What AU even is this, I don't even KNOW where this came from, God, I am a monster.

The king requires men for his elite circle of knights, and they have come to Jakku, at last.

Rey Kenobi watches them test young man after young man for hours in the town circle. She clutches her basket tightly to her chest when her close friend from childhood, Poe Dameron steps up.

He is good with a blade – more than good. Of course he is; he is the son of the town’s blacksmith, and his mother is rumored to have studied fencing herself as part of the foreign aristocracy before settling down with Poe’s father. And what a scandal that was.

Poe Dameron fights gloriously in the mid-day sun.

“No,” Rey whispers, to herself. “No, Poe, hide your light. Do not let them recognize your worth.”

It is too late; Poe has a need to prove himself as the best. He is the best rider in their village, the best swordsman, the best mind. And now the king’s men know it.

Poe Dameron is to become Sir Dameron, and ride to Coruscant within the week with Temmin Wexley, and Iolo Arana.

***

Raiding parties plague their kingdom; they identify themselves as the First Order, led by an enemy known as Snoke, who has declared himself king in opposition to King Ren.

It is for this reason that new Knights of Ren are required. Rey tells herself that is a bad dream, that she will not lose her closest friend, that it is not real, none of it.

It becomes very real when Poe Dameron appears in her doorway, his horse fully tacked and waiting patiently behind him.

Rey stares at the sword on Poe’s hip.

“I must leave, now,” he says softly. He looks older than his twenty-two years, suddenly. “Rey – you must know. I love you.”

“What?”

He strides into the room and takes her by the arms. Rey is in shock: she has desired this man since she learned what desire was, four years ago. And he – he loves _her_? Plain, poor Rey Kenobi?

“Please, let me kiss you,” he murmurs. “I cannot do so on my own, not without your permission. Please, say that I may kiss you.”

“You may,” Rey permits. “Please, Poe, kiss me.” His mouth catches hers, and Rey understands suddenly why girls risk their reputations behind barns and in alleyways, why they risk everything for a feeling like this.

Kissing Poe feels the way she’s always imagined flying to feel.

The kiss is over far too soon, and he rests his forehead against hers. “I may never see you again.”

“You will,” Rey says, insistently, bringing her hands up to push through his hair. She latches on, trying to hold him close a moment more. “You must, now that we have – now that I know you love me too.”

“Surely, you can’t mean –”

“I can, and I do. I love you, Poe.”

He kisses her forehead and murmurs to her:

“I will love you until the last star is pulled from the sky, for even then you will be a source of light, my most perfect sunbeam.”

A man calls from outside that all must ride, now.

One more chaste kiss is placed on her lips, and Rey watches, sadly, as he walks to his horse swiftly and leaps up. His gaze feel like it burns into her very skin before he stirs his horse into motion, and disappears from view.

***

Rey Kenobi is twenty-one now. Three years have passed since she last laid eyes on the man she loves, but still. She loves him.

She waits for him.

She waits as the days turn to weeks, weeks to months, months to years.

She waits as her Uncle Ben dies, and her farm fails.

She waits as raiding parties draw ever nearer to Jakku.

She waits as she trains herself on the sword, harder and more viciously than before, relying on the years of practice spent with Kes and Poe Dameron in the safety and secrecy of their courtyard.

She waits as the King drives through the town, now twenty-two himself, and of the age to find a bride.

When the king points at her and commands she move forward, she still waits.

Sir Dameron is not among the king’s men today, and no one steps forward to give her advice, or to lay claim to her.

Rey Kenobi is promised to King Ren with little fanfare.  A business transaction. There is no other real option: when a rat from the lower classes is offered security and a future by a man with the power to take rat’s heads off with a snap of his gloved fingers –

The rat takes it.

No matter who or what the rat is waiting for.

***

Sir Dameron’s head snaps up so quickly it might well be comical when they announce her name at court.

She has been bathed and dressed in pretty fabrics, her hair washed and combed until it shines with a light she did not think possible. When the lady-in-waiting spins her to look in the mirror, Rey is shocked.

She has caught her appearance many times over in reflections and various surfaces, and has always been aware that while plain-faced, she has a light and pleasing figure, fine bone structure, and a body capable of work.

In this mirror though, in the clothes given to her by the king:

Rey Kenobi can be beautiful, she finds. And she finds that it is terrifying.

When Sir Dameron – _Poe,_ she thinks, desperately, _Poe, dear God, save me_ – looks at her after she is announced, it is though there is no life left in his face. Poe looks stricken, briefly, and then a mask falls into place, a mask almost as powerful and immutable as the physical one worn by his master in battle.

He kisses her hand – the air over her hand, really – when the king’s men line up to pay her tribute, after she settles into her seat at Ren’s right hand.

She wants to tug him closer by the collar, and hiss at him, “I thought we would wait for each other. I thought you loved me. Why didn’t you come back?”

But he walks away before she can fully form the thought.

She does not speak to him for a week.

***

Rey counts herself lucky when she comes across Sir Dameron in the courtyard. She has relative freedom to wander the grounds as she sees fit, providing a lady-in-waiting be within shouting distance. Ren had almost -- smiled? -- when she requested the opportunity to walk about.

“Anything for you, my lady,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss her cheek. Rey had shivered from the contact, and then had felt ashamed.

King Ren has been nothing but kind to her, and truly, he is a very handsome man. He will not be a terrible husband - he is _king -_ but she shivers because it all feels so wrong.

Rey had spent so long convinced that she would only ever know the lips of one man.

The man in question is now standing across from her in the courtyard, sharpening his sword dutifully. His skin is tan, and there is scruff on his face, a beard that he never allowed when they were younger, but still. He looks so much the same, and her heart feels fit to break.

“Hello, Sir Dameron,” she whispers when she stands five feet away from him. She smiles at the way he startles, and when he smiles in return, she feels a weight lift from her heart, a weight she had not fully been aware of.

“Hello, My Queen.” He bows formally, stiffly, and Rey finds her temper rather flares.

“You called me Rey, when we were younger,” she points out, childishly.

She sees an answering spark in his eyes before he answers - hope is not lost, then. “We were children. Now I must call you My Queen, or my lady.”

“And what if I were to forbid it?”

“I would ask you not to,” Poe says firmly.

“You would not do as I ask?” Rey asks, archly. “Your Queen?”

“I would do anything for you. I will serve you until my dying breath, my queen.” She cannot tease him for that.

“And that is all you have to offer me?” Her sadness is apparent in her voice. “Your death?”

“I am a Knight of Ren,” Poe says firmly. His jaw has set into a stubborn line that she knows well from childhood. “And you are to be Lady Ren. In life I will serve you, and death will be my only freedom from that service. It is the oath I swore.”

“But you are so quick to forget other oaths,” Rey mutters, mutinously. He heard her -- she knows he did.

“Rey -” he begins, remorse coloring his voice. Then, he blushes.

“There,” Rey says, gathering her skirts and beginning to walk away. “You remember me after all.”

***

She and Poe have similar encounters over the next two weeks.

At banquets, she catches him staring at her, often, and he looks away blushing, always.

Poe cannot get into trouble for blushing or looking, she knows. In fact, it is rather supported that the Knights of Ren serve the Lady of Ren in all things. As the future wife of their master, they are just as sworn to her as they are to him; a respectful, worshipping love is only dutiful.

Still. Poe’s eyes linger on her differently than the other knights’. And, dare she say, differently than even her intended’s eyes.

Ren makes her laugh, though. He is truly funny, and kind-hearted, and he tells her, in secret, that his birth name, his Christian name, is Benjamin.

“Ben,” Rey says, lightly. “Ben. I like it.”

“I like it when you say it,” Ben says, smiling. Rey smiles back at him, and he takes her hand. He brushes his thumbs over her knuckles, and when she looks up at his face, up at the towering man who is so soon to become her husband, she sees something very confusing on written on his brow.

He wants to say something. But he doesn’t.

Ben pulls away, and excuses himself. Rey realizes that this brief contact, hand to hand, is the most her betrothed has touched her in the four weeks he has known her.

Later, in her rooms, she cries, wracking sobs.

She cannot have Poe, and her own husband does not want her.

There is a knock on the door, timid and unsure. The lady in waiting had retired already, exhausted and complaining of a headache ( Rey had told her to go to bed and skip attending her for the night), so she opens the door on her own.

Poe Dameron stands on the other side. Of course, he was assigned to be her guard tonight.

“Why are you crying, my lady?” He asks, hand already gripping the hilt of his sword. “Has someone caused you injury?”

Poe Dameron, standing at attention in her doorway, hand on his sword, is such a powerful memory from the day they parted, three years ago, that her tears begin anew.

Rey shakes her head, miserably, and stalks to the window. Poe follows her, and stands a foot or two away from her, facing her, watching her as she breaks into pieces.

“It’s - it’s everything,” she weeps. “Everything. Oh, Poe. I cannot marry Ben. I cannot.” In her grief, she calls the king by his Christian name, but Poe does not seem to notice. “I will die if I marry him.” It is not said merely in the height of her hysterics: she knows it to be true.

“The king will not be cruel to you, Rey,” Poe says soothingly. “You need not fear him. You will certainly not perish.”

Rey wipes her eyes. “You think I cry over being wed to the king because I fear him to be cruel? I know that he is intimidating, and powerful, and prone to dark moods, but he has never been unkind or lifted a hand to me. ‘Tis a better fate than many young women from our village face.”

“Then why do you cry, sunbeam?” The name is an impropriety, but she clings to it. It gives her the strength to say what she must.

“Because, I will never love _him_.” Rey whispers, trying to communicate with Poe what she means through her eyes, and her words, meager though they are. “Poe, please.”

He understands. He has always understood her. “Rey,” he groans and drags his fingers through his hair. Another trait he has not lost in the last three years. “Rey, please, we cannot do this. The consequences of what you suggest –torture, for one. Execution, for another.”

“You fear that Ben would do those things to you?” Rey asks, and then pauses, mind working furiously for a moment. She opens her mouth to defend her soon-to-be husband’s progressive ways, but Poe interrupts her, shaking his head.

“No.” He says it cleanly, firmly, finally. “No, Rey, listen to me. If the only obstacle in the way of me being with you was my own death, I would have taken the risk. Seven hells, I would have taken the risk weeks ago when you first arrived at court and back into my life. I would have taken it over,” he steps closer to her, and Rey feels herself both shrink away, and lean into him, “and over,” he takes another step, “and over, and over again.” He is right up against her, and Rey gasps for air. “Do not mistake me. If it were my life, my freedom, my safety _only_ on the line, this would have been over with, weeks ago. No, my sunbeam, I fear that _you_ would come to harm were we to dally behind the king’s back. And that is not acceptable. Rey, I could die a thousand times, happily, knowing that you were safe.”

“You,” Rey licks her lips, suddenly dry as they are. She thinks she understands what he is saying, but she must know. “You still love me?”

“I told you,” he whispers, nose almost touching her own. “I would love you until the final star fell from the sky. And tell me, my sweet,” he ducks a finger under her chin and guides her head to the side, so she can look out the window. “Are there still stars in the sky?”

“Yes,” Rey admits, eyes burning. “Yes, Poe.”

“Then you have your answer,” he murmurs into her ear. Rey gasps slightly when he kisses her gently, so gently, between earlobe and jaw, a spark running through her from chin to navel.

Then he is gone, and she is not entirely convinced the conversation was not a dream.

***

Her wedding to Ben is scheduled for two weeks after Poe confesses he still loves her.

His confession may as well have been a death knell, for Sir Dameron becomes cold and distant to her once more afterwards. He ignores anything she says that is not a command, and she finds increasingly ludicrous tasks for him to complete, in an effort to garner a response.

Nothing works.

He ignores her, he does not look her in the eyes, he does not flush when she calls him Poe in earshot of others.

Nothing.

Poe Dameron does not love her. He lied.

There is nothing for her to wait for anymore, she realizes.

If only her heart would understand as well as her mind.

***

A day before the wedding, Rey walks into her soon to be husband’s chambers, fifteen minutes earlier than announced (she is trying to escape the sight of Poe Dameron practicing his swordplay outside her window with Sir Wexley, the passion of his movements stronger than ever before, a previously unknown ferocity possessing him, his shouts of exertion too much to bear) expecting to meet Ben for daily tea.

Instead, she is met with the image of King Ren standing behind Armitage Hux, a lord from court, both half-dressed and doing … things … Rey has only seen barnyard animals do.

“Oh!” Rey exclaims, covering her eyes. “Oh, I am sorry. Forgive me, my lord.” She backs out of the bedroom and stands, awkwardly in the antechamber.

Distantly, Rey knows, and understands, that she should be more upset that she has just spotted the man she will be wed to for the rest of her life copulating with another, especially another of a sex opposite to her own.

But, she feels a strange relief. Ben had looked so - _happy_ in the moments before he realized Rey had stumbled upon his affair. He looked carefree, and younger, and very much … in love.

The look in his eyes was one that was missing whenever Rey looked into his face - it’s the same look her heart has been missing for three years, since a young knight kissed her goodbye and made promises he had no intention of keeping.

Ben emerges, fully dressed, three minutes into her reverie.

“Hello, Ben,” Rey smiles.

“You are taking this rather well, my lady,” he shuffles his feet. “Please, would you like to sit down?”

“I am quite alright.” Rey cocks her head and considers. “More than alright. I feel like many things make sense now. But, may I ask - why me?”

“What?” The man cocks his head as well, and Rey remembers that he has always been royalty: he is most likely not used to people questioning him.

“Why me?” Rey repeats herself. “Why choose me and take me from Jakku, when you could have selected any bored court lady to wed, when you could have had an arranged marriage and kept your man with you, with no questions asked? Why pretend to choose to marry for love?

“Oh.” Ben nods, understanding. He rubs the back of his neck, an endearingly embarrassed gesture on a large man, before answering. “You were starving,” he explains, awkwardly. “And I do care for you, truly. But you cannot know the position I am in, the pressure I am under to have an heir. I chose you because you were starving, and I could help you, and you could help me.”

“Why not tell me the truth?” Rey asks, another question that he could execute her for. “I would not have told anyone your secret.”

“I know,” Ben nods, miserable. “I know you wouldn’t have. The last few weeks have been a torment, Rey. You are exactly the kind of woman I should love, that I could love, if only …” She understands him, she really does, if only because this is the exact same way she feels. “I will still marry you, Rey, and we will have children, and I will end things with Hux. I promise. I will not embarrass you.”

Rey sighs, and then looks out the window for ten seconds, praying to God for guidance and discernment, before turning her attention back to Ben. “There are certainly women in the world who would be content to warm your bed when you saw fit to attempt an heir; but please, God in Heaven - Ben, as your friend, I beg you: Do not subject me to that life. I will die without love, I know it. The heart in my chest is too wild, too free to live without love. And you could never truly love me, not when your heart lies with another. And you would not be fair to him, or yourself, to end things so cruelly.”

“Armitage knows the reality of our situation.” Ben mutters, casting a glance over his shoulder to his chambers, where his lover still hides.

“What situation?” Rey snaps. _He has so many more choices than I, the fool._ “You are the king, for God’s sake. Make an edict, declare a law. Do whatever you must. The kingdom will not care whom you bed, not when you are a competent and just king who has brought an era of prosperity and security, even in these dark times.”

“You – you really think so?”

“I do,” Rey laughs, and takes his hand comfortingly. “Follow what your heart tells you, Ben. It is a good heart; I have learned this much the last weeks. Follow your heart, and it will not lead you astray.”

Ben tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear; it has fallen loose in her passionate argument. “My mother would have liked you very much, Lady Kenobi.”

“I would have liked to have met her,” Rey says honestly. Queen Leia is a legend in their kingdom, the warrior princess who married for love.

“This is goodbye, then?” He smiles at her, uncertainly. “I assume you do not wish to be here when I make the announcement?”

“I certainly do not,” Rey acknowledges. “I wish you every happiness, Ben.”

“And I you.” He smiles, then, and it is a nice smile, a smile she could have loved, in a different time, a different world where they both weren’t already in love with another. “There has never been anybody who makes my name sound the way you do.”

“Do not become a stranger, King Benjamin.” Rey winks at him and then walks out of the room. She kicks her heels off and picks her skirts up, and then runs _,_ really _runs_ for the first time in months, whooping and laughing down the soft carpeted hallway.

Rey Kenobi is _free._

***

She packs up her things into a valise, suddenly greatly at a loss of what to do. Ben had personally provided her a pouch of gold coins – she’ll never go hungry again – but her house was no doubt burned in the raiding party that destroyed her village a month ago.

Rey Kenobi will survive, she tells herself fiercely. She will survive.

Pocketing some of her coins and pulling on a traveling cloak, Rey carries her small bag to the stables. Ben had also gifted her the spritely mare she’d fallen in love with over the last six weeks.

Pulling her saddle from the wall and throwing it over the horse’s back, Rey thrills at the knowledge that the pain and agony of court life will soon be physically behind her. “Hello, Bee,” she murmurs to the dappled horse. “Let’s go, girl.” Rey begins to wrestle the rest of the tack in place.

“Rey!” she hears an anguished whisper behind her. “Rey, what are you doing?”

“Leaving,” she answers, not stopping her movements, despite the familiar voice of her childhood friend, her ex-love, the man who’d turned his back on her. The horse must be tacked, and she must be on her way.

“In broad daylight? You must be mad.” Poe grabs her wrist suddenly, and Rey twists around striking at him blindly, like they had practiced when they were children. Poe catches the other hand too, and backs her up against the stall, out of sight of the rest of the courtyard. “Rey, you cannot run from the king. He could have you killed.”

“As if you cared,” Rey snaps, mulishly. “Now release me, Sir Dameron, or I will acquaint my foot with a favored part of your anatomy.”

“I do care,” he says, adamantly. “I do care, and go ahead and kick me with all the strength you possess. I have been an ass, yes, but out of fear for you, Rey. Please, dear God, do not risk this. You are to marry the king.”

Rey sags against the wall, and Poe looks faintly relieved that she no longer looks set on removing parts of his body. “No, I am not.”

“Yes, you are,” Poe moans, leaning forward to rest his head on the wall of the barn, inches from her neck. “Rey, my Queen, please listen to me.”

“Listen to _me_ , Poe Dameron,” Rey snaps. “I am not to be your queen, or anyone else’s. Ben released me from our betrothal, at my request. I imagine the official edict will be announced within the hour, and I’d like to be far away when that happens.”

“What?” Poe looks stunned. “How? Why?”

“I did not love him, and he did not love me. We agreed it was a disadvantageous match, for all its appearances of advantages aplenty.” Rey shifts against Poe’s weight. “Now, please, unhand me, so I may leave.”

Poe releases her as though she had stabbed him with his sword, and Rey yanks the final strap into place on her horse and leaps astride Bee.

“Come with me,” Rey says, offering him her hand. He can ride behind her, share the horse, like they did so often when they were younger.

“I cannot just leave,” Poe looks baffled. “Rey, it would not look … proper for a _Knight_ of Ren to elope with the former fiancée of _King_ Ren.”

“Damn propriety,” Rey snaps. “And damn you, too.” She pulls up on the reins, signaling to the horse to prepare to ride. Bee stomps her hooves in response. “This is goodbye, then.”

“No, do not say goodbye.” Poe is wild-eyed, and drags his hands through his hair, causing the curls to stick up erratically. “Just – take some time for us to figure this out. We have time.”

“We have had plenty of time,” she tells him, primly. “But now we will go our separate ways, for I cannot waste any more of my own. You have made your intentions clear, Sir Dameron, over, and over, and over again,” she knows it is cruel to use his words from her chambers against him, but he has hurt her so cruelly himself the last few weeks, “and I hope you come to peace with the choices you’ve made.”

Bizarrely enough, the fireworks, the ones announcing the king’s descent towards the front gates, begin at this very moment.

Poe and Rey are distracted, momentarily, by the bright, whirring sulfur cutting through the air.

“Look at that, Sir Dameron,” Rey says coolly, picking up the reins. “The stars are falling from the sky.” She rides forward without another word, kicking the horse into a gallop the second she clears the stables.

Rey tells herself she cannot hear Poe shout her name over the pounding of the hooves.

Over, and over, and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two-shot?  
> two-shot????  
> two-shot?????  
> (Poe POV in second chapter ?????)
> 
> sorry, the fluff outpouring today was met with an hour and a half typing session that bore, well, this.
> 
> I am sorry.


	2. Stars in the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe POV from Part One
> 
> And, an ending to the story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Coarser language, implications of infidelity (other Knights make improper comments regarding Poe/Rey's relationship), and Poe briefly worries that Ren and Rey have already consummated their marriage (not atypical in betrothals), against Rey's will.
> 
>  
> 
> And, yes, that /is/ a not-so-small Princess Bride reference in the culmination of this story.

When Poe is twenty years old, he turns to look at Rey Kenobi, his best friend since they were children, during the evening ceremonies of the Festival of Spring.

The firelight dances on her hair, casting a glow to her features, softening them.

He looks at Rey Kenobi, whose elbows are permanently scraped from fights, whose lean and wiry frame belies a terrifying strength, whose hair is permanently up in the same three buns –

When Poe is twenty years old, standing in the early spring air under the stars, he realizes that Rey Kenobi is the most beautiful person he knows.

And he loves her.

Not in the way he loved her before, the love of childhood, the strangely possessive love that exists between child conspirators.

No. He loves her the way a husband should love a wife.

Rey Kenobi is sixteen, and he is twenty, and he will wait until she is of an appropriate age to marry.

When he is twenty-two, and Rey is eighteen, finally, finally of age –

The king’s men come to Jakku with promises of knighthood, of service to the King.

Poe demonstrates his not-insignificant skill with a blade for the men, meaning to prove himself, meaning to gain some fortune or favor, something to offer Old Man Kenobi when he begs to marry his beloved niece –

Instead, Poe finds himself named a new Knight of Ren.

***

“We ride in ten minutes,” a stern commander of the king’s men informs Poe. He blinks in response, in confusion.

 _So soon._ There is not enough time. He needs more time.

“May I ask why?” Poe thinks to say.

“You may not,” the commander fixes him with a stern but not cruel glare. “Gather your weapons and any materials you cannot be parted with. We ride hard, without stop, until we reach Coruscant. We should reach there by nightfall. The king will meet you there and begin your training in earnest, for the First Order grows ever nearer.”

Poe bows and walks away. He hugs and kisses his father: Kes looks at him fondly, and with tears in his eyes.

He clasps his son’s hand in his own, and when Poe pulls away, there is a small item tucked into his palm.

It is a ring, made of silver, bearing an inscription on the inside, faded by years of wear and tear.  Poe examines it curiously in the low light streaming through the window.

“It says, ‘until the stars fade.’ It was your mother’s, and now it is yours to give to whom you will,” Kes says gruffly. “I’m an old man, Poe. I may not still live when you return.”

“Don’t say that, Papa,” Poe begs. “Please.” He hugs his father tighter, and then Kes claps him on the back and shoos him away.

Poe has one more goodbye to say. He rides his horse up to the small house on the Kenobi plot of land and dismounts.

Rey stares at him sadly when he walks into her door, and – she knows.

God, she knows.

“I must leave, now.” He needs more time, if only they had more time. “Rey – you must know. I love you.”

“What?” Rey looks stunned, and he is grateful she was not holding anything when he walked in, or she would have dropped it. She always was clumsy.

His feet move before he can control them, and Rey is in his arms within seconds. She is so slight, so warm, and he will go to hell, but he will have this moment; if she lets him.

“Please, let me kiss you. I cannot do so on my own, not without your permission. Please, say that I may kiss you.”

Rey blushes but does not strike him or pull his sword from its scabbard to slay him. This may not go as poorly as he feared. “You may. Please, Poe, kiss me.”

The kiss exhilarates him at the same time it breaks his heart. Kissing Rey is perfect, just as he suspected it would be.

And now he must say goodbye.

“I may never see you again,” he reminds her when they separate.

“You will. You must, now that we have – now that I know you love me too.” Rey’s hands latch onto his hair, and Poe is frozen to the spot by her incidental admission.

“Surely, you can’t mean –” _Could she? Does she?_

“I can, and I do. I love you, Poe.”

Pressing his lips into her forehead, Poe confesses: “I will love you until the last star is pulled from the sky, for even then you will be a source of light, my most perfect sunbeam.”

Then, he is called to ride, and all he has time to do before he mounts his horse is kiss his sunbeam, his soul, his life, his Rey, one more time.

She tastes of starlight.

When he leaves her, Poe does not turn his horse around and thunder back to her, the way his soul yearns to. No. He leaves _for_ her, to gain fortune in this life. This is not truly a goodbye, merely a temporary and necessary separation.

He will return to her, and he will be a better man than when he left. She loves him, and he loves her.

They will be together.

***

Poe does not return to Jakku; for the longest time, he cannot, engaged in too many campaigns on behalf of the king, too many journeys far over the kingdom’s borders. Still, he hears news.

For instance, the news of a fever that kills many villagers, in a single day, reaches his ears a year after his departure.

Ben Kenobi, dead.

Kes Dameron, dead.

Rey Kenobi. Alive.

That knowledge is the only thing keeping him sane.

***

The three years after he leaves are a terrifying blur of exhaustion, of training, of bloodshed and violence and regret. Poe kills more men than he can count, helps to torture men for information at Ren’s orders. They are wicked men, but still he knows, what they do is wrong. He is tortured in turn, three times; three times he faces death but something keeps him alive.

Friends betray them, other knights die, but he survives.

He feels like a cockroach, but he survives.

The Knights ride within fifteen miles of Jakku, almost three years to the day he left Rey Kenobi.

“Jakku? Wasn’t that your village?” Starck asks, pointing to the west.

“Yes,” Poe nods, and leaves it at that.

Starck is not done, though. “Would you like to visit? Maybe see some of those pretty girls Wexley and Arana are always talking about?” He winks, and Poe grips the hilt of his sword.

“No,” Poe shakes his head. “There is nothing for us there.”

Truly, there is nothing for him there. Rey Kenobi would not want Sir Dameron of the Knights of Ren.

He serves an honorable man, he knows. He serves an honorable cause.

But he fears he is no longer honorable. His hands are not clean. He cannot touch Rey Kenobi with these hands, ever again.

He will not pull the stars down with him.

***

King Ren seeks a bride, a commoner, one he can marry for love, much like his mother before him selected her spouse.

Poe grins with the other knights as they take bets on what kind of woman Ren will bring back with him after his tour of the kingdom.

“Maybe she’ll be a smuggler, like his father,” Blario says, belching slightly.

“No, no,” Arana waves his hand. “Solo was a war hero.”

“You can be both,” Wexley points out, mildly, and Poe smiles at him for the largesse.

The messenger arrives six hours before the king’s party, almost two months into Ren’s tour:

The King has found a Queen, and there is to be a celebration in her honor.

Poe is still drunk from the night before, and stumbles from the hall to vomit before the message is finished being read. When he comes back, there’s an oddly sympathetic look on Wexley’s face.

“Are you quite alright, Dameron?” He asks.

Poe frowns. “What, you’ve never entertained yourself with too much drink?” Poe shrugs, and then grabs a flagon of watered down ale.

“Alright,” Wexley says, still uneasy.

Poe thinks nothing of it, until the banquet that evening.

A young, nervous page reads from the scroll before the chosen commoner woman walks through the doors. “Presenting, the future Queen of Corsucant, the Lady Ren –”

Poe pokes at his fish – he wonders if t _he fish had a happy life, or if it had just been waiting to die and end up on this plate, Lord, what a morbid thought, Dameron_ – while the announcement’s being made.

“….From Jakku province…” his ears do prick at that, and a strange nausea fills his stomach. He wonders if he’ll be sick again, if he’s still hungover.

“Rey Kenobi.” Poe looks up, and feels the weight of the last three years crash into him.

First: she’s thin.

She’s too thin.

Next: They’ve dressed her up in skirts of brocade and draped her in pearls; her hair is brushed so hard it must have hurt – her hair was always tangled, he remembers that, he remembers her letting him untangle the knots sometimes, his fingers gentle, his stomach clenching and unclenching at the soft sounds she made in her throat while his nails scratched against her scalp – and her cheeks are pinched to be ruby red under the candlelight. Her once lively eyes are dull and tired in her face.

Rey Kenobi is beautiful – and she was beautiful on the day he left, but now this beauty doesn’t look like her own.

Her eyes spark when they meet his, and Poe schools his expression into one of disinterest. She looks away quickly after that, and his thoughts roar like the tidal waves whispered about by the merchant ships returning from the Indies.

The reasons he had for not returning to her and claiming her as his wife seem more than surmountable now, now that he is faced with the knowledge that she is lost to him forever.

He stares at Rey when he can, but twitches his eyes away whenever anyone near him makes a noise too suddenly. She does not look at him again, but when he waits in line with the other Knights – Lord help him, it is all he can do to not pull his sword in the middle of this assembly and strike down every man and anyone who stands between him and Rey, but _no,_ no, he serves the King, he is here for the King, and now for his Queen – and he stares at her more openly, now that it is expected.

Poe bows and kisses the air over her hand, like a good member of the court, and he tries not to close his eyes and purr in bliss at the warmth of her palm in his. He does not touch his lips to her skin, for fear that he will learn that she still, after all these years, tastes like starlight.

She looks like she wishes to speak to him, but she has not said a word beyond ones of greeting to any of the other Knights. Ren is a good man, Poe knows, but any untoward interest between a lowly Knight and his future Queen – Poe has seen firsthand the things Ren can do when his temper is stirred.

Men can kill their wives, he knows, and still be king.

He moves away quickly, but he looks into her eyes and catalogues her appearance, which haunts him even as he flees the banquet as soon as it is socially acceptable.

Beautiful gown, careful kohl, berry-red lips, pale skin, faded freckles, improved posture, aristocratic nose, Ren at her left, the court at her feet –

Her appearance plagues him, through the night, his thoughts not allowing him to sleep.

_Rey looks like a prisoner._

_Rey looks like she does in his dreams._

_Rey looks like she does in his nightmares._

_Oh God, Rey, I’m so sorry, I am a fool._

Rey looks like she was meant to be a Queen.

_And she soon will be._

***

Rey attempts to return their relationship to one of familiarity over the next weeks, and Poe resists, even though his heart screams for her, all hours of the day and night.

He once had been tortured for days on end, denied water for stretches of time only to be half-drowned in kegs of it every twelve hours.

He’d take that back now, if he could, change out his circumstances and return to the madman’s dungeon. This is real torture, to have Rey so close, but so forbidden from him.

Rey is stubborn as ever and refuses to see reason, but Poe will succeed in convincing her that they cannot be friends, cannot be _friendly_ if she is to be Queen. He re-establishes the differences in their stations as often as she can, but he despairs (and rejoices) every time her jaw hardens into  a stubborn line.

Rey Kenobi has not given up on him. And it’s enough to send him to Heaven; enough to banish him to Hell.

***

One night, he is assigned to guard the future Queen’s door until dawn. Poe takes his station dutifully, and closes his eyes against the knowledge that she rests inside, alone, when Jess takes her leave looking ill. Poe paces up and down the hallway, like a predatory cat, hand on the hilt of his sword.

This is to be his life; protecting the woman he loves, serving her husband, following one of his sacred oaths, even as he forsakes another.

Poe is startled from his reflection by the sound of powerful, wracking sobs. Rey cries, heartbreakingly, and Poe remembers that she returned from an individual audience with the king hours ago –

Surely he had not…

They are betrothed, of course. Ren is well within his legal rights to consummate, well within his legal rights to …

It is too much. Poe stomps to the door, and then, much more hesitantly than he had moved before, he knocks, gently, three times. Rey opens it, wrapped in a dressing gown, hair twisted in a simple bun, eyes red and swollen.

“Why are you crying, my lady?” He asks, standing at attention. “Has someone caused you injury?” _I will kill them, even if it is the  man I swore an oath to, for my heart serves you first, always._

She begins to weep again, and Poe fears he will go mad if she does not speak. Weeks of ignoring her attempts at conversation, and now he must beg for her words. Rey turns and walks to her window, un-shuttered for a spectacular view of the grounds and night sky, and Poe follows her, pathetically, lost in orbit.

“It’s everything,” Rey sobs after a moment. “Everything. Oh, Poe. I cannot marry Ben. I cannot. I will die if I marry him.” Her voice ends on a wail, and Poe’s eyes flicker to the door. If they are caught in this position, they could both be killed, but he cannot leave her, not when she needs comfort. She must be worried about Ren’s character.

 “The king will not be cruel to you, Rey,” Poe says, praying that Ren has not _already_ been cruel. “You need not fear him. You will certainly not perish.”

Rey scowls at him. “You think I cry over being wed to the king because I fear him to be cruel? I know that he is intimidating, and powerful, and prone to dark moods, but he has never been unkind or lifted a hand to me. ‘Tis a better fate than many young women from our village face.”

“Then why do you cry, sunbeam?” Her eyes light at the fond name, and Poe curses himself for exposing his improper regard for her.

“Because, I will never love _him_.” Rey stares at him, her meaning clear, and oh, this is torture indeed. “Poe, please.”

 “Rey,” he begs her, tearing at his hair. “Rey, please, we cannot do this. The consequences of what you suggest –torture, for one. Execution, for another.”

“You fear that Ben would do those things to you?” Rey looks confused and almost angry, and she opens her mouth, no doubt to argue that she would not let Ren lay a hand on him, but he interrupts her.

“No. _No_ , Rey, listen to me. If the only obstacle in the way of me being with you was my own death, I would have taken the risk. Seven hells, I would have taken the risk weeks ago when you first arrived at court and back into my life. I would have taken it over,” some madness over takes him and he begins to move towards her. “And over,” his feet and mouth betray him, pulling him near to Rey, and she does not shy away, “and over, and over again.”

Her warmth bleeds through their clothes, and Poe fights the urge to cover her mouth with his own and take her on the floor of this bloody room, propriety be damned, security be damned, his own opinions and strength be damned. He _cannot,_ though, because: “Do not mistake me. If it were my life, my freedom, my safety _only_ on the line, this would have been over with, weeks ago. No, my sunbeam, I fear that _you_ would come to harm were we to dally behind the king’s back. And that is not acceptable. Rey, I could die a thousand times, happily, knowing that you were safe.”

“You,” the torture amplifies when her small pink tongue darts out to wet her bottom lip. He groans, quietly at the sight. “You still love me?”

“I told you,” he leans in and this is an impossibility not to kiss her, now. “I would love you until the final star fell from the sky. And tell me, my sweet,” with a gentle hand, he guides her to gaze out the window, up at the heavens. “Are there still stars in the sky?”

“Yes. Yes, Poe.” He breathes in deeply, his nose almost in her hair. God. He is a fool.

“Then you have your answer,” he whispers into her ear. Rey jumps and gasps as his lips press against her skin, open-mouthed and all too brief.

He places his lips on the column of her throat, with the barest pressure possible.

Then, he flees like the coward he is.

He was right. She still tastes like starlight.

***

“You are from the same village as my bride, correct?” Ren asks him the next day in the hall. Poe had been standing there, catching a breeze from the open doors.

He startles, briefly, at the king addressing him directly, casually, and outside the field of battle or training.

“Yes, my lord.” Poe nods deferentially.

“Tell me, is she much changed from when she is a girl?” Ren’s brow furrows, and Poe realizes he must be worried about Rey’s reaction to court.

“No, my lord.” Poe smiles.

“How would you describe her?” Ren asks, curiously.

‘Lively,” Poe laughs despite himself and stares out at the tree line in the distance, away from the palace. “Lively, and funny, and kind. Very kind, despite a sharp tongue. She is generous with her laughter, and with her smiles, but she rarely smiles for her own sake. Rey was always happy, even though she knew great sadness after her parents were murdered by thieves. We were good friends when we were children, and insisted I train her how to sword fight. She can best most of the Knights, I’d wager, but she’d apologize for striking them. Not until they were on the ground and yielded, mind you. But she’d beat them all the same.”

Ren stares at him for long, unbroken moment, and Poe’s face heats in shame. He could not have been more obvious: his love for Rey is so potent he cannot control his tongue.

“And tell me, Sir Dameron. Does she still love you, too?”

Ren walks away before Poe gives him an answer, and his heart breaks, for now Ren knows the truth.

He cannot speak to Rey again. It is too dangerous.

***

The two weeks leading up to the royal wedding are new kind of torturous. Rey attempts to speak to him, often, and with increasing lack of propriety, and Poe brushes it off every time.

One night, when they stumble up from the banquet hall, Starck nudges him.

“What makes a farm boy so resistant to the charms of a queen?”

His heart blackens at the question. “What do you mean, Sir Starck?” Poe aims for jovial, but he knows it falls flat.

“I mean,” Starck hops in front of him in the hallway, and Poe is forced to stand still as the larger man winks at him and continues, “If a queen was so keen on bedding me, I wouldn’t fight her on it. You could fuck royalty, Dameron, and yet you turn your pretty nose up at it. God knows I wouldn’t have the strength to refuse if Lady Ren offered me the chance to satisfy her needs. Maybe she will, once she realizes that you are an exercise in futility.” Starck emphasizes the last half of his speech with a lewd hand gesture that mimcs an act of sex.

Poe’s temper had boiled during Starck’s explanation, but the end grows too offensive for him to merely breathe through his nose and wait out his rage. He draws his sword without hesitation and backs Starck into the wall. The taller man looks grey-faced, apologetic, immediately, hands in the air.

“You will never speak of her again,” Poe warns, snarling. “You will not mention her virtue, you will not pretend to slander her honor, you will not even look upon her, for you do not deserve the view. Lady Kenobi is to be _queen,_ and I could have your head for such a speech, you disgusting, vile piece of –”

“That’s enough,” Wexley bellows, grabbing Poe’s arm. Poe tries to jerk free, indignantly, but Wexley shakes his head at him, sternly. “Sorry, Starck,” Wexley says soothingly. “We’ve all had too much to drink tonight, and I think you and Dameron drank more than the rest of us. He has a point, though. If King Ren overheard you speak of his beloved bride that way, he’d probably pay Dameron for your head himself.”

Starck, still pale, nods and breathes deeply through his mouth when Wexley forces Poe’s blade all the way down.

“Come on, Dameron,” Wexley murmurs. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Poe stumbles, furiously, away, ignoring Temmin’s attempt at words of kindness.

They echo in his ears all the same as he falls asleep.

_“At least you’ll always know that the little Kenobi girl is cared for, Poe. Learn to be grateful for that.”_

***

Two days before the wedding, after he has fulfilled Lady Kenobi’s request – he tries his hardest not to think of her as Rey, and often fails – to fill six pitches with water at varying, random heights, and bring them to the greenhouse so she can water the flowers, Poe wipes his hands on his trousers and bows to his queen.

“Anything else, my Queen?” Poe murmurs, head and back still bowed.

“Yes,” she whispers, her lady-in-waiting well out of earshot. “Yes Poe, please talk to me.”

“I cannot.” Poe stands and shakes his head regretfully. “If your ladyship is done with my assistance, please send me away.”

“Fine,” Rey snaps, color high in her cheeks. “Leave, then. You’re so good at it.” She spins on her heel and storms away, but not before he sees the tear catch in her eye.

Poe has often felt like a monster the last three years, but never so much as today.

He feels all the more monstrous when he stumbles across King Ren and Lady Kenobi taking a turn of the gardens.

Poe has merely been wandering the maze, trying to clear his head, when his ears prickle at a melodious, girlish giggle. He knows that laugh, even if it has been years since he heard it. _Rey._ He slips to the corner and peers around, wondering if he will see her playing with one of the hounds, or laughing with her lady-in-waiting, Jess, who Rey has grown attached to.

No. She laughs at her future husband.

King Ren, who Poe has always thought of as a stern man, as a proud, hot-tempered volcano of a man, smiles joyfully down at Rey Kenobi. He looks at her like she is the most delightful creature on the earth, and he looks deeply pleased for having made her laugh.

And Rey’s laughter is genuine, Poe knows. In fact, as she laughs, her arms wrap around her middle, her sides clearly aching as she laughs, and laughs, and laughs. It is like a nightmare where he cannot move his feet; he is frozen to watch this scene of domestic bliss, forever.

Rey may still love him, he knows, for the sweet boy he once was. But Sir Dameron could never compete with a king. And looking at their faces, the agony he has felt the last six weeks increases horrendously. He had been holding onto the childish hope that Rey’s marriage to Ren would be merely one of convenience; a selfish hope, considering how much and how often he had rejected her the last six weeks. But now, he knows: eventually, perhaps sooner than expected, she will be lost to him in every possible way.

Ren lifts his hand to wipe away Rey’s tears of laughter, and she catches his hand and holds it in place, cupped against her cheek. His black riding glove is a striking contrast to her fair but freckled skin, and the last thing Poe sees before he turns tail and runs from the scene is Ren’s thumb delicately stroking Rey’s cheekbone.

 _This must be what dying feels like_ , he thinks dazedly, before he hurls himself into his room and slams the door. _This must be what it feels like to have your heart die._

***

He trains, brutally, with Wexley the next day. Rey will be married on the morrow, and he will never entertain the thought of her again, other than thoughts of her status as his queen.

In the early afternoon, however, he spies her, fleeing from the castle, traveling cloak fastened and suitcase in hand. _She does not even have the foresight to do this at night? Headstrong girl._

Poe excuses himself from the other knights and sprints after her. He catches up with her in the stables, where she is tacking Bee the Eighth, the mare she often rides in parties.

“Rey!” he hisses, ducking into her stall. “Rey, what are you doing?”

“Leaving.” Rey snaps her answer, refusing to pause.

“In broad daylight? You must be mad.” Poe stupidly grabs her wrist, and when she strikes at him, catches the other as well and presses her against the stable wall, flattening against her so no one could see them unless they walked into the stall. “Rey, you cannot run from the king. He could have you killed.”

“As if you cared,” Rey says, angrily. _No_. Not angrily. Miserably: his queen is miserable. “Now release me, Sir Dameron, or I will acquaint my foot with a favored part of your anatomy.”

“I do care,” Poe entreats her to understand, his heart breaking for her fate, her fate that has doomed the pair of them. “I do care, and go ahead and kick me with all the strength you possess. I have been an ass, yes, but out of fear for you, Rey. Please, dear God, do not risk this. You are to marry the king.”

The fight leaves her body, and Poe breathes easier, until she says: “No, I am not.”

“Yes, you are,” Poe rests his head against the wall, over her shoulder, forcing himself not to breathe too deeply lest the smell of her neck drive him to sins greater than the ones he has already committed. “Rey, my Queen, please listen to me.”

“Listen to _me_ , Poe Dameron. I am not to be your queen, or anyone else’s. Ben released me from our betrothal, at my request. I imagine the official edict will be announced within the hour, and I’d like to be far away when that happens.”

“What?” She could have grabbed a horseshoe to wallop him over the head, and he would be less dazed than he is now. “How? Why?”

“I did not love him, and he did not love me. We agreed it was a disadvantageous match, for all its appearances of advantages aplenty.” Rey squirms under his hold. “Now, please, unhand me, so I may leave.”

Poe has no choice but to let her go, and he stands stunned, blinking at the revelation while she finishes preparing Bee. She mounts the horse, and he stares up at her, still at a loss for words.

“Come with me.” Her hand extends out to him, and he almost takes it, but then he remembers. .

“I cannot just leave! Rey, it would not look proper for a _Knight_ of Ren to elope with the former fiancée of _King_ Ren.” Her reputation would be in tatters, no reputable town would take them in, they may even be targeted for the supposed sin. Her safety is still his top priority.

“Damn propriety,” Rey dismisses his legitimate concern so casually, and he loves her for it at the same time he wishes to rave at her until she sees reason.. “And damn you, too. This is goodbye, then.”

“No, do not say goodbye.” He tears at his hair, again.

Doesn’t she understand? If he leaves the Knights, he will have _nothing_ , nothing to offer her, nothing to give her, nothing to build a life with. If she stays, and they wait, he can retire with his honor and reputation still intact.

She just needs to accept that they need more _time._

He wants to give Rey the galaxy, and to do that, he needs time. “Just – take some time for us to figure this out. We have time,” he begs her.

“We have had plenty of time. But now we will go our separate ways, for I cannot waste any more of my own. You have made your intentions clear, Sir Dameron, over, and over, and over again, and I hope you come to peace with the choices you’ve made.” His words thrown back at him, his words from their private audience two weeks ago, slice at his heart effectively.

Fine. He will pull her down from the horse and convince her of the depth of his passion, how much he ardently loves her, but he is stopped by the hiss and bang of fireworks, the ones that announce the king’s approach to the front gates.

“Look at that, Sir Dameron,” Rey grabs her reins once more, and Poe watches in horror as she says, “The stars are falling from the sky.”

Rey kicks Bee into a gallop almost immediately, and ignores him screaming her name, until his throat is raw and he has fallen to his knees in despair.

Rey Kenobi is gone, and she does not know, does not believe that he loves her.

It is all over, then.

***

Poe drags himself, involuntarily, to the royal announcement. His chest feels like it has been filled with brick; his feet have been encased in lead.

He listens, shocked even through his stupor, as King Ren stands proudly and announces that he will not marry Lady Kenobi – a fine and beautiful young woman with untold virtues – because his heart lies with another.

Another man.

There is promise to be a riot after the announcement, and Poe assists the other Knights in breaking apart the crowd. It will take some getting used to, but the people do love their king. They will support him in this, Poe knows.

And sure enough, after Armitage Hux steps forward as the king’s true intended, the people surge in support of their current and future king.

Poe is happy for Ren, he really is. He just wishes there was a happy ending for himself as well.

***

A week later, he drifts around the castle as though he is already dead, already a ghost. A looming presence appears in his periphery; he looks up to his king.

“My lord,” Poe bows deeply.

“Sir Dameron,” Ren bows mocking in return, a strange smile on his mouth. He smiles always, now, Poe realizes. That is why it looks so strange: he went from a lifetime of solemnity to one of joy, overnight. Thanks to Rey, Ren is happy at last. “What, pray tell, are you still doing here?’

“What do you mean, my lord? Do you require my presence elsewhere?”

“No,” Ren looks at him, amused. “No, Poe. I do not. I release you from my service.” He clasps a hand to Poe’s shoulder and then slaps a bag of coin, more than Poe has ever thought to possess in his lifetime, onto his chest.

“What?” Poe blinks, stunned, barely catching the bag before it drops to the floor.

“Take your horse and leave, Dameron. You need no longer serve me.” Rey grins, mischievously and then obviously forces himself to frown regally.

“My lord,” Poe protests, but Ren is already sweeping away.

The tall man waves over his shoulder. “Go and get your wife, Dameron. And please, call me Ben.”

Poe remembers to move a minute later, and then he does not stop moving.

***

After an exhaustive month long search, taking up the entirety of May, Poe narrows down Rey’s location.

Apparently, after a family left to travel north, escaping their bad memories of the place their children died, Rey had paid a pretty price in gold (too generous, he hears, for what the cottage was actually worth, and he smiles at his sunbeam’s generosity) for a cottage some forty miles from Jakku.

It is nestled in the woods, he learns, and garners its precise location from a wizened old woman, overcoming her initial suspicions (and he understands, truly, how it looks to have a crazed man with a sword demanding to know where a single, small woman is) after he shows her his mother’s ring and explains that he means to marry the Kenobi girl.

“Good luck, Sir Dameron,” the woman, Maz, calls at his back. “You’ll need it.”

Poe now leads his horse through the thicket, heading towards a clearing where his heart tells him he will find his sunbeam.

She finds him first, though.

There is an almighty blow to his stomach, out of nowhere, and Poe grunts, falling to his knees. Another blow knocks him flat on his back, and he blinks, confused, at a staff at his throat.

Rey Kenobi stands, proud, vicious, fierce, above him.

“What are you doing here?” She hisses through her teeth. “You made your intentions clear.”

“Not clear enough,” Poe gasps, trying to catch his wind. “Not clear enough, or you would know that I –” He stops talking when she prods him none too gently on his chest. “Alright, alright. Please, Rey, let me prove myself to you.”

“You’re an idiot, Poe Dameron,” Rey says, coolly, staff still pointed at his throat, rocks cutting into his back.

“I know,” Poe nods in agreement. “Trust me, I know.”

But, he didn’t mean to say ‘I know.’

He likes to think she understood what he meant.

***

She rolls her eyes when she releases him and storms away towards the clearing.

“I’m going to follow you now, my queen,” he calls at her retreating back, and smiles when she flaps her hand.

“I guess I cannot stop you,” he hears her grumble. Rey has not yet killed him, so he takes it as a sign of hope.

She is folding laundry over a line when he leads his horse into the clearing. Some five dozen yards wide, dappled sunlight pours through the tops of the trees, casting a faerie light quality to the setting. Her cottage is clearly comprised of multiple rooms, curtains in the windows, flowers planted under them. His heart seizes at the perfect picture. This is the life he had dreamed about for the both of them, on endless campaigns and battlegrounds, when all hope was lost. He would close his eyes and picture them married, happy and settled, in some peaceful location, far away from the rest of the world.

Rey has achieved this, without him.

She is too perfect, he knows, but he settles down on a tree stump and smiles at her, chin in his hand.

“What brings a Knight of Ren all the way out here?” Rey asks, her inborn curiosity getting the better of her, clearly.

“I am no longer a knight,” Poe shrugs. Rey quirks an eyebrow at him, stopping her movements briefly, a sheet bundled in her hands. “King Ren released me from his service.”

“So why are you here, then?”

“Because,” Poe says solemnly. “Because I swore an oath to protect Ren and my queen. Ren released me from his service; my queen did not.”

“I release you now,” Rey declares, and then hangs the sheet up with sharply controlled motions. “And I am certainly not a queen.”

“I know.” He knows the short response is maddening to her, for her shoulders stiffen, but she continues to hang up her laundry, and he continues to guard the clearing.

***

That night, he sleeps under the stars and tries to name the constellations that his father taught him as a child.

He forgets every one, and merely names them all, _Rey._

When she pops her head out of an opened window the next morning and sees him still lying there, he can hear her groan across the clearing. “You’ll catch your death out there, Sir Dameron!” She scolds him.

“I know,” Poe says simply. Rey throws her hands in the air and disappears into her cottage. She steps out onto the stoop ten minutes later with a kettle of tea, a cup, and a loaf of bread. Rey storms over to him and hands him the items. Poe looks at them confused, and then back up at Rey.

“If you starve, I won’t be able to drag you far away enough to bury you.” Rey spins and walks away before he can smile at her.

“Thank you, my Queen,” Poe says to her back.

“And stop calling me that!”

***

“The sheeps’ wool needs to be cut,” Rey announces one day, passing him a basket and clippers.

“I know,” Poe nods, cheerfully, and goes to take care of her small but sweet flock. He returns with wool an hour and a half later, and he sits out front on a tree stump and cards it patiently. Rey comes out thirty minutes later with a pitcher of ale, and she leaves it, awkwardly, three feet away from him.

“It’s hot out today,” she says, by means of explanation.

“I know,” Poe doesn’t look up from the wool until Rey walks away. He leans down to grab the ale, and when the warmth floods his system upon drinking it, he isn’t so sure it’s from the liquor.

***

Autumn comes, and he refuses to abandon his post. He sleeps under the tree in the yard, in a self-constructed shanty, he bathes in the stream, he forgoes shaving.

Autumn arrives, and with it, Rey catches a small cold, nothing so worrisome that Poe feels inclined to ride to the nearby village for a doctor, but enough that he worries in general when the nights grow colder.

She is not warm enough, he knows, and he knows how to fix it.

After a day in the forest, Poe hefts a small pile of lumber into the yard, and begins to split the logs.

“It will rain tonight,” Rey says idly, looking out on the horizon and frowning.

“I know,” Poe says, smiling briefly.

She stares at him, he can feel her eyes on his face, but he maintains his physical toil, refusing to meet her gaze. “You should sleep inside, in the other room,” she offers before disappearing into the house.

Poe leans against the axe and smiles after her, more broadly this time when he hears a distant and gentle sneeze.

***

It is a bitter cold December night, and he startles when he hears Rey cross the floor of the house, through his borrowed quarters, quietly. Poe has not slept well in years, not since he first left Jakku and the love of his life behind, and even with her so near, the nightmares cannot be banished. So, he is awake when she rises from bed.

Rey crosses the floor, and his eyes follow her as she vanishes outside.

Poe grabs a blanket – she’d walked out in nothing but her nightclothes – and follows her outside.

Her head is titled back, unbound hair cascading down her back. She is a vision in black and white, an ethereal glow emanating from her form. Rey outshines the moon itself while she gazes up at the stars. Poe wonders if they are jealous at her beauty, brighter than theirs as it is, or if they celebrate it like he does, content with the knowledge that they may only ever bear witness to it, never be allowed a union with it.

Then, disrupting the stillness of the clearing, she speaks.

She whispers into the night sky: “I still love you.”

“I know,” Poe says, heart breaking because he knows that he doesn’t deserve it, he knows he could never –

Rey turns and looks at him, and his breath catches, because it looks as though she’s pulled the stars down herself this time, it looks like she’s caught all the starlight in the galaxy in her eyes, and he strides forward, throwing caution to the wind, what does he need of _caution,_ when he has _Rey_? Poe catches her, pulls her against him, more roughly than he intended, but the whimper she makes is not one born of pain, so he kisses her, oh he kisses her, and he knows, he knows into his bones, that there has never been a kiss as right as this, as fought for as this, as perfect as this.

“I love you too,” he murmurs when they break apart, slightly, if only to catch their breath. “God, Rey, I have loved you every day for six years, please, believe me, it has only grown stronger with each passing moment.”

“I know,” Rey nods, fervently, and her hands come to thread through sides of his beard. “I know.”

“I will never be parted from you again,” he promises. “I swear it.”

“Don’t swear things anymore,” Rey begs him. “Please, just kiss me.”

Poe nods and obliges the lady, and they kiss with only the multitudes of stars as witness.

***

They walk back inside, and Rey stands in the doorway to her bedroom and holds out her hand. “Join me?” She asks, softly, nothing but love in her eyes.

“Not tonight,” Poe answers. “Not tonight, sunbeam.” She looks sad, disappointed, so he clarifies, striding across the room to her side, and pulling out his mother’s ring. “This is yours, if you want it,” he tells her. “This was my mother’s, and I want it to be yours. Marry me, Rey, marry me, and we will not have to go through this life alone any longer.”

“Yes,” Rey nods, fervently, and Poe laughs, kissing her desperately. “Yes, Poe.” They embrace too long for it to be proper, and Poe groans when he pulls away.

“We will wait until we are wed,” he says firmly, and he is not sure if he says it to remind Rey, or to remind himself, that they should wait.

“Tomorrow.” Rey looks up at him with shining eyes. “We can wed tomorrow?”

“If it pleases my queen,” Poe answers easily, and he laughs when she pinches his side. “Yes, my sunbeam. We can wed tomorrow. We will ride to the village and request the priest, and pay him as much as we must to wed in the eyes of God.”

“And then I shall be yours, and you shall be mine?” Rey asks, tears in her eyes. Poe kisses her, gently, the way she deserves, the way that he wants to.

“Yes, Rey,” he whispers into her hair after he has pulled her into his arms. She trembles, and he does too. “Until the last star is pulled from the sky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (And they lived happily ever after, with us assuming the rest of their lives, until Draco decides to write a follow-up one shot of their wedding night or their children, etc etc)
> 
> ((Next story to be published is an entirely fluffy-fluff one shot))  
> (It's a college AU)  
> (It's a college meet-cute AU)


End file.
